The Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), Ms Thandi Modise, says unless Parliament “awakens” and wields it powers to amend the budget, South Africa will never meet the targets of the National Development Plan (NDP).
Speaking during the closing of the second Annual African Network of Parliamentary Budget Offices conference, Ms Modise called on Members of Parliament (MPs) to “utilise their power to do the right thing”.
“We fought for Parliament to have the power to amend the budget but we are yet to see a Committee making recommendations to amend the budget. Members of Parliament, especially from the African National Congress must start utilising the power that they have in the Committees to do the right thing,” said the NCOP Chairperson.
She said MPs must also make use of the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) to do what “the electorate expect of them”, that is, effective fiscal oversight.
“As Parliament we are not wielding the power that we have, unless Parliament wakes up, South Africa is not going to meet the targets of the NDP,” she added.
The NDP is South Africa’s initiative to grow the economy, end joblessness, poverty and inequality by year 2030.
Ms Modise said the establishment of PBOs were signs of maturing democracies and called for more African countries to consider setting up these offices in their parliaments.
“There are too few Parliamentary Budget Offices in the continent, and they are a very important complement to the work of Parliament, where they exist, they have given a voice to committees that were not able to understand and analyse budgets in order to conduct effective fiscal oversight,” she said.
The NCOP Chairperson also called for a balanced gender representation in the staff of the PBOs. “We need more women in the PBOs, we hope to see a more balanced representation than we see today here in this conference,” she said.
National Assembly Member, Ms Sheila Shope-Sithole, asked the PBO of South Africa to conduct a study to determine how much the country’s economy was losing through private sector corruption and anti-competitive business practices.
“How much are we losing as a country because of private sector corruption, like the recent reports of banks colluding to weaken the rand? When we budget as politicians we do it according to the needs of the country – thinking that all have the interest of the country at heart – we don’t think some economists sit somewhere and work against that.
“PBO experts need to apply their minds to find out how much have we lost through collusion, how many cases are before the Competition Commission and whether we need to beef up the Competition Commission through an act of Parliament,” she said.
The two-day conference was attended by PBOs and budgeting experts from Africa, Europe and Canada, as well as civil society activists and academics.
PBO of South Africa panel member, Ms Yvonne Phosa, said the conference has increased the knowledge base of MPs.
“We received interesting and refreshing presentations from different perspectives and they stretched our minds to look at the role of the PBOs from a broader perspective. These offices play an important role in empowering MPs, to enable them to discharge their responsibilities and make an impact,” she said.
By Sakhile Mokoena
18 August 2017
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